{"id":334405,"date":"2025-12-07T04:40:07","date_gmt":"2025-12-07T04:40:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/334405\/"},"modified":"2025-12-07T04:40:07","modified_gmt":"2025-12-07T04:40:07","slug":"cardinals-could-pull-off-a-multi-player-blockbuster-with-interested-al-contender","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/334405\/","title":{"rendered":"Cardinals could pull off a multi-player blockbuster with interested AL contender"},"content":{"rendered":"

The St. Louis Cardinals <\/a>have dragged their feet on this current rebuild for some time, and it only finally started getting off the ground once Sonny Gray was dealt to the Boston Red Sox<\/a> for Brandon Clarke and Richard Fitts.<\/p>\n

That still leaves notable figureheads like Nolan Arenado and Willson Contreras as valuable trade candidates, not to mention a number of younger contributors who could be worth quite a bit on the open market. Even if the Cardinals don’t want to trade everyone from their core<\/a> in one offseason, it’s expected that they’ll blow up the foundation in order to start from scratch.<\/p>\n

Naturally, there are a myriad of suitors<\/a> interested in their cache of veteran talent, and the team could pull off a number of deals to ship each player out individually.<\/p>\n

But what if they want to rebuild the farm system with a quality-over-quantity approach? It may be hard to get a lot of Top-100 prospects for individual players on the roster, but what if they combined them?<\/p>\n

Well, it just so happens that the Seattle Mariners are interested in a pair <\/a>of high-profile Cardinals. Might there be some smoke on this fire?<\/p>\n

Cardinals could complete JoJo Romero-Brendan Donovan blockbuster with Mariners<\/p>\n

The Mariners’ interest in Donovan<\/a> is well known at this point. They may lose Silver Slugger finalist Jorge Polanco to free agency, and Donovan, who posted a 119 wRC+ while hitting .287\/.353\/.422 overall on the season, is a near-perfect fit for their needs.<\/p>\n

With a Gold Glove in his back pocket and two years of team control remaining via arbitration, Donovan alone would fetch a nice haul in a trade. Add Romero to the mix, and you’ve entered blockbuster territory.<\/p>\n

The 29-year-old southpaw was excellent throughout the 2025 season, though he was particularly dominant in the second half, recording a 1.71 ERA while holding opposing hitters to a .209\/.298\/.252 batting line. He’s a rental due for free agency after the 2026 season, but given that Seattle only has one lefty in their bullpen at present (Gabe Speier), he’d make for an excellent set-up option for closer Andr\u00e9s Mu\u00f1oz.<\/p>\n

Of course, it’ll help grease the trade wheels that the reigning AL West champs have an elite farm system<\/a>, headlined by eight(!) Top-100 prospects. <\/p>\n

Shortstop Colt Emerson is the true prize as a 20-year-old in Triple-A, but young pitchers Kade Anderson and Ryan Sloan could be of great interest to Chaim Bloom and the Cardinals. If MLB-ready talent is more what St. Louis is searching for, starters Logan Evans or Emerson Hancock could appeal to the front office.<\/p>\n

Regardless, the Mariners clearly have the talent and motivation to get a deal done. Romero and Donovan could finally push them over the World Series hump, while a number of their top prospects could help accelerate the Cardinals’ rebuild.<\/p>\n

Anyone down for a win-win trade?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The St. Louis Cardinals have dragged their feet on this current rebuild for some time, and it only…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":334406,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[65],"tags":[363,99],"class_list":{"0":"post-334405","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-mlb","8":"tag-mlb","9":"tag-sports"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/334405","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=334405"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/334405\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/334406"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=334405"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=334405"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=334405"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}